Listen to the Chicago band's newest music below

Sep. 2, 2010

Billy Corgan is forging into the future with Smashing Pumpkins. / publicity photo

Written by

If you want to go

Smashing Pumpkins plays at 8 p.m. Tuesday with opener Bad City at the Knitting Factory, 211 N. Virginia St. Tickets are $37.50, available at the Club Cal Neva, Recycled Records and online at www.ticketfly.com. Details: 775-323-5648.

More

Related Links

Smashing Pumpkins is back. Has been since a reunion album in 2007, in fact. But with singer-guitarist-frontman Billy Corgan the sole original member of the Chicago alt-rock band, it's not the same Pumpkins. Or is it?

The band, which rocketed to stardom in the early 1990s with multiplatinum albums "Siamese Dream" and "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" broke up in 2000 after having made five albums. They famously reunited in 2006, but only drummer Jimmy Chamberlin signed on for the reunion with Corgan, leaving behind bassist D'arcy Wretsky and guitarist James Iha. After making a lukewarmly received album in 2007, Chamberlain also left the band in 2009, leaving Corgan with his newly assembled group, which makes a stop in Reno on Tuesday.

But Corgan isn't merely rehashing past glories on his band's current club tour. Last fall, he started releasing new songs, one-by-one, as part of a now unfolding 44-song collection, "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope." Five songs have been released from the collection so far, and Corgan said in an interview that the next song from the unfinished collection will be released Sept. 14. What's more, they're all offered for free download on smashingpumpkins.com. The songs so far have a feel of past Pumpkins, shedding the sheer guttural rock of 2007's "Zeitgeist" for more of a mix of the psychedelic rock and dream pop of the band's earlier work.

"Part of what attracted me to doing (these songs) is to create a somewhat interactive model," Corgan said. Doing so, he said, allows him to gauge fan reaction a song at a time. Releasing the songs surely, but steadily, also keeps the band in front of an audience longer than a single album could.

(Page 2 of 2)

"I don't think you can afford to go away now for a year or two years and come back with an album," Corgan said. "You can't survive the Twitter wave," he added, explaining that a few bad remarks about an album can bring down an entire body of work.

Smashing Pumpkins, its entire career with the support of mostly major record labels, is now forging ahead on its own. It will eventually release "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope" as physical product in the form of EPs. But for now, independence is key to Corgan's future.

"We're dealing with a broken system," Corgan said of the current music industry business model. "It's a matter of, do you want to crawl through broken glass to get your McDonald's, or do you want to walk the two extra blocks?"

Corgan has chosen the latter, avoiding a common contract in the business these days, the 360 deal, where labels share in artists' recordings, concerts, merchandise and more; a practice that was unheard of 10 years ago.

"That's why I'm not in the major-label system anymore," Corgan said. "They know that I won't accept those kinds of deals. I've sold something like 30 million records, and the last Smashing Pumpkins record went gold," he said, but added that the current business model is finding young artists willing to sign all-inclusive deals.

With his own new business model in place for Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan also assembled his latest touring band, which includes 20-year-old drummer Mike Byrne, new bassist Nicole Fiorentino and guitarist Jeff Schroeder. Byrne joined after auditioning for Chamberlin's spot, while Fiorentino replaced Ginger Pooley, who left to raise her family.

Corgan said he understands some fans' desires for the original members and the nostalgia that goes along with that, but that Smashing Pumpkins isn't a nostalgic band.

"The artistic principle is, who can play the music?" Corgan said. "And for Smashing Pumpkins in 2010 it's different than in 2005."

Of the former members, he said they're not interested in the band now.

"Jimmy wants to play jazz," Corgan said. "James wants to make solo music, although he hasn't made any in years. D'arcy's been out of the music business for 11 years. (With my new band) everybody had a healthy respect for the Pumpkins in the past and they understand the band. All three have backgrounds in indie music. I wasn't looking for a pro gig guy."

Corgan also points out that the instability and drug problems the band faced in the past aren't an issue with the new band.

"We're the antithesis of that group," Corgan said. "I wasn't exactly a saint myself in the '90s."

Not that any of it's of the greatest importance anyway. Not to Corgan, who said rock 'n' roll is no longer the center of his universe.

"I sort of had a spiritual awakening when I was 33," the now 43-year-old said. "That's when it dawned on me. I just felt ... that God gave me a sense of purpose. For a long time, rock 'n' roll was like a god to me."

Corgan said some of his revelations made it into his music, but he didn't even realize it. And even now, there are no overt spiritual tones to the music (look to his books for that).

One thing's clear to Corgan on the future of the band.

"This is not a reunion or nostalgia. We are a very edgy, alternative band and we continue to push people's buttons. I'm still an artist. I'm living in the present."